Babe in the Woods

Movies: Hanna

Hanna is a slick, cool little action film that was failed (in my opinion) by its confusing plot and the never-explained motives of its villains and heroes.

*Spoilers ahead!*


Hanna opens with the titular character, a teenager played excellently by Saoirse Ronan (aka, the creepy little brat from Atonement), hunting down a deer in what appears to be either Siberia or the Arctic Circle. As she finishes killing the deer, a man comes up behind her with a gun and says, "You're dead". Hanna turns and begins fighting him with the skills of a trained assassin. Turns out, the man is Hanna's father and she is a trained assassin. She's a 16 year old killing machine who can also speak about 10 different languages. Her father, Erik (played by Eric Bana), has been preparing her for some eventual confrontation with some bad guys. But this is all the audience knows.


After Hanna and her father make their whereabouts known via a transmitter, Erik escapes and Hanna is captured and taken into holding. We find out that Erik is an ex-CIA operative who supposedly went rogue and is very dangerous--at least according to one Marissa Ziegler (played by Cate Blanchett). When Hanna asks to speak to Ziegler during her interrogation, they send in a lookalike, whom Hanna swiftly kills. She then escapes the underground lair where she's being held, only to find herself in the middle of the Moroccan desert with only the orange prison jumpsuit on her back.

Hanna hitches a ride with a Bohemian-to-the-point-of-parody British family on vacation and makes her way to Germany to meet her father in a fairy tale-themed amusement park. During her journey, we get a little of Hanna's back story. [Serious spoilers ahead] Apparently, Hanna was part of a medical experiment to alter babies' DNA to make them smarter, faster, and stronger: the perfect soldiers and assassins. Hanna's mother was going to abort her but was recruited at the last minute to participate in the experiment. Hanna's father fell in love with the woman (I think? It's never fully explained) and tried to help her flee to safety when they shut down the experiment. Ziegler chased down Hanna and her family, attempting to kill them all and succeeding only in killing Hanna's mother. Since that day, Hanna's dad lived in exile, raising and training Hanna for the day when Ziegler would hunt them down.

Do you feel a little confused? I sure did. Unless I missed multiple conversations or flashbacks, so many things are unexplained:
1) Who or what was behind the baby DNA experiment? What was the purpose of the experiment?
2) How was Ziegler involved?
3) What is the relationship between Erik and Hanna's birth mother? Were they in love? Was he just protective of her?
4) Why was Ziegler trying to kill Hanna and her family? Did the CIA plan to kill all the babies and families involved in the medical experiment? Why?
5) Why was Erik so intent on raising Hanna as his daughter?
6) Why didn't he plan to just hide forever--why did he and Hanna allow themselves to be found?
7) What happened to the British family in the end? What purpose do they serve other than giving Hanna a taste of friendship and love outside or her relationship with her dad?
8) What is Ziegler's back story? Why is she so evil?
and finally,
9) What is the purpose of this movie? Seriously. Is it just supposed to be a dumb action flick? Is it a commentary on medical experimentation? A modern-day fairy tale (Hanna has a book of Grimm's stories and Hanna and her father plan to meet at the fairy tale amusement park. I assume the integration of fairy tales into the plot wasn't an accident)? Is it a condemnation of the CIA? The American military-industrial complex? Foreign relations? America itself? Is it a feminist film? An anti-feminist film? A "feral child" film, like Nell?

As you can see, Hanna is one big sieve, with plot holes, unexplained motives, and characters with no back stories. Some action films have plots that are so convoluted, you can't follow them at all. Hanna wasn't remotely difficult to follow because there was so little too follow. I kept waiting for some big reveal, where Ziegler would explain herself to Hanna, but that moment never came.

Even though Hanna is a cool, slick action film, it was a major disappointment and tease. And I have no idea if the director intended for it to be that way.

3 out of 5 stars (mostly for cool action sequences and an awesome soundtrack)

The Hunger Games: Book vs. Movie

Movies and Books: The Hunger Games

**Warning: This post contains spoilers about both the book and movie adaptation of The Hunger Games! Proceed with caution!**

We say it so often that it's become a cliche: "I enjoyed the movie, but the book was so much better!"

Although books and movies each have their own set of pros and cons, we can't help but be disappointed when we feel that the movie adaptation of a beloved book fails to live up to our expectations (though that rarely stops us from excitedly buying tickets to the movie anyway!).

Suzanne Collins' hit series The Hunger Games is perhaps the best loved young adult series this side of Twilight. The film adaptation of the first in the series broke records this weekend, raking in over $150 million dollars in the United States. Below, I break down the differences between the book and the movie to show each medium's advantages and disadvantages. Once again, this post is rife with spoilers!

Life in District 12

Book: Collins spends a significant portion of the first third of the book detailing the coal-rich, impoverished district that is Katniss Everdeen's home. The griminess and starvation of the majority of the residents is palpable on the page, and Collins takes her time describing Katniss' daily life: her relationship with her mother and sister, her friendship with fellow hunter Gale, her illicit trading at The Hob, and the differences between the wealthier residents of District 12 and the starving poor.

Movie: The film envisions District 12 as similar to Depression Era United States: women in plain, practical dresses, men going off the coal mine, etc. And although the film conveys the poverty of District 12, I didn't get the sense of absolute desperation that I got from the books--the fact that an illness or injury that leaves you unable to work might mean imminent starvation for your entire family. Seeing District 12 onscreen was thrilling, no doubt, but it was surely whitewashed from the horrors conjured up by Collins.

Point: Book

Katniss' Thoughts and Psychological Process

Book: The book is written from Katniss' point of view, which gives the reader plenty of insight into her thoughts and feelings. We see everything from her growing anger at The Capitol over the indignity of the Games, to her mixed feelings toward Peeta. In the book, for example, Katniss believes Peeta's romantic feelings for her are entirely a strategy for winning sponsors and thus, the Games. Her feelings toward Peeta change and evolve over the book, ranging from annoyance, to distrust, to betrayal, to affection.

Movie: The filmmakers wisely stay away from using voice overs (I am not a fan of voice overs in movies generally) to convey Katniss' thoughts. Instead, the movie focuses on action and plot points, rather than Katniss' psychological state at any given moment. This definitely takes something away from the emotional experience of reading the books and seeing Katniss transform. However, Jennifer Lawrence, who plays Katniss in the movie, does an excellent job of conveying terror, suspicion, and in some cases, love (especially for little Rue).

Point: Book, although the film is definitely helped by Lawrence's excellent performance.

Secondary Characters

Book: Although Katniss and Peeta are the main characters, Collins' novel is filled with colorful (literally!) supporting characters, such as drunken mentor Haymitch Abernathy, perky District 12 escort Effie Trinket, and TV personality Caesar Flickerman. The supporting characters often provide comic relief in the book, and either serve as mentors and helpers to Katniss, or, in the case of the other Tributes, adversaries.

Movie: This is one area where the movie really succeeded. The supporting characters in the film adaptation are perfectly cast and light up the screen. I was especially impressed by Stanley Tucci's performance as the gregarious Caesar Flickerman and Lenny Kravitz's (yes, him!) performance as Katniss' wonderful, warm stylist Cinna. The supporting characters are excellent foils to Katniss and Peeta (who, being from District 12 and in constant danger of dying during the Games, are often introverted and grave). They bring humor, color, and fun to an otherwise (understandably) grim tale.

Point: Movie

The Actual Hunger Games 

Book: One thing the book dwells on is how hungry and thirsty Katniss is and how much time she spends looking for food during the Games. This detail is taken for granted in the film, which focuses on more exciting (and violent) action sequences. But the suffering Katniss endures during the Games is so much more intense in the books. Additionally, the descriptions of the terrifying obstacles the Gamemakers place in the Games, such as the Tracker Jacker wasps and the Muttations at the very end are so much scarier in the book than on the silver screen.

Movie: The film faithfully adapts all the major deaths and occurrences from the Hunger Games, from Rue's death to Katniss blowing up the other Tributes' food. But even on the big screen the terror and excitement I felt while reading the book was never fully replicated. This is especially true at the end when Katniss, Peeta, and Cato are chased by the Muttations. In the book, these werewolf-like creatures are genetically engineered to resemble the fallen Tributes, making the attack all the more psychologically horrifying. In the film, they're still scary, but not quite to the same extent.

Point: Book

Take away: The Hunger Games movie is a great film and is very faithful to Collins' novel. I will definitely see the second and third movies when they come out and am looking forward to seeing Katniss' budding revolutionary tendencies and love triangle with Gale and Peeta unfold on the big screen. However, there is no substitute for the power of imagination while reading a novel. On the page, everything was more intense: sadder, gorier, grimier, scarier, more emotional. While the film is entertaining and fun, Collins' dystopic novel (the first in a trilogy) is the far more satisfying pop culture snack.

Movie: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Book: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Some Stuff I've Seen Lately

Movies: It, Wanderlust, A Separation, Pariah

It seems that I've gotten way behind on my movie reviewing and so here is a Reader's Digest Condensed version of my takes on a few movies I've watched over the past couple weeks.

Pariah


Pariah, directed by former Nashvillian Dee Rees, is a coming of age tale from a unique perspective: a black, middle-class lesbian teen. Although Alike (wonderfully played by Adepero Oduye) is black, Pariah could have just as easily been about a white teenager. The focus of the film is on Alike's sexuality and familial/friend/romantic relationships--not her race. Some have called Pariah "the gay Precious", referring to Lee Daniel's devastating film about a poor, black girl who is illiterate, abused by her mom, and pregnant (a second time) with her father's baby. Honestly? I find the comparison confusing at best and racist at worst. The only thing the two films have in common is that the lead characters are both black teen girls. But Alike in Pariah is downright privileged compared to Precious. She lives in a comfortable, middle-class home. Dad is very distant, but clearly loves Alike and her sister, Sharonda. Mom is religious and strict, but mostly just confused and concerned about her older daughter's secretive ways and fondness for unfeminine clothing. Alike is surrounded by a loving support system: her sister knows she's gay and accepts her; her English teacher encourages her writing (Alike is a talented poet); her best friend Laura introduces her to a women-only strip club and tries to get her a girlfriend.

Pariah is not so much a movie about oppression and unending suffering as it is about figuring out who you are--authentically--despite external pressures to behave in a certain way. Even when Alike's mom freaks out when she finds out the truth about Alike (a truth she probably already knew, but refused to admit to herself), there is still love, hope, and a better future for Alike. Pariah is a very modern and refreshing take on coming out of the closet as a gay teen. Being gay today does not automatically mean you will be a hated outcast. Although Alike faces difficult challenges in her quest to understand her sexuality, she is the embodiment of the popular gay rights slogan "It gets better".

4 out of 5 stars

***


A Separation


This year, A Separation was honored with the Best Foreign Film award at the Oscars, and man was it deserving of the prize! A Separation is easily one of the best films I've seen in 2012 so far. One reason I found it so appealing is that, despite its subject matter, A Separation does not wallow in melodrama. It's subtle, humorous, and captures the small choices that impact our lives in big ways.

A Separation follows an modern Iranian family. Simin wants to move abroad so that her 11-year-old daughter, Termeh, will have more opportunities in life. Simin's husband, Nader, doesn't want to move because his elderly father is suffering from Alzheimer's. From the get-go we sympathize with both Nader and Simin--both have selfless reasons for wanting to stay or move. Simin asks Nader for a divorce, which he refuses to grant. Instead, she moves to her mother's house, forcing Nader to hire a devoutly religious woman, Razieh, to clean and take care of his father while Nader is at work. Because of Razieh's religious beliefs, she finds it morally difficult to tend to Nader's father without another man present. Also, Razieh is hiding a secret that interferes with her work at Nader's home, and her neglect of her duties leads to a string of unintended consequences that affect everyone involved.


The previews of A Separation made the film look like a big, dramatic bummer; so I was pleasantly surprised at the levity director Ashgar Farhadi injects into the movie. Even during tense moments, a character usually rolls his or her eyes or says something darkly comic that relieves a bit of the tension. And even though all the characters (some more than others) have negative personality quirks and behaviors (for example, Nader has a tendency to emotionally manipulate his daughter), no one is a villain or a monster. Everyone in the movie is trying to do what they think is best under a certain set of constraining  circumstances.

A Separation is worth watching twice (at least): once for the plot twists and a second time for the wonderful acting. It's an excellent film about the drama of everyday life.

5 out of 5 stars

***



Wanderlust


From the minds of David Wain and Ken Marino--two comedians known for their work on the short-lived sketch comedy series The State, as well as cult films Wet Hot American Summer and The Ten--comes Wanderlust, a pretty good comedy about a couple of over-worked Mahattanites, George and Linda (Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston), who in the wake of  an unexpected job loss move to George's brother's home in Atlanta. Along the way, the couple spends the night at a bed and breakfast in Elysium--a hippie commune in rural Georgia--and have their minds blown by the free love/no personal property/tons of pot and alcohol way of living there. After George has a fight with his alphahole brother, the two decide to stay at Elysium for a few weeks and see if they want to to move there permanently. During their stay, control freak Linda begins to love the forcibly low stress way of living at the commune, whereas open-minded George begins to resent the ladies man leader of Elysium, Seth (Justin Theroux, excellent at portraying an alpha male in a supposedly hierarchy-less community). George and Linda's trip down the hippie rabbit hole threatens to tear their relationship apart.

Wanderlust is one of those movies--similar to Crazy, Stupid, Love--that I enjoyed a lot but didn't think was particularly earth-shattering. Rudd and Aniston are a great comedic team: they're both "straight men" who slip easily into silly, absurdist comedy (see Aniston's hilarious drug freakout in this movie). Wanderlust is also blessed with a funny and competent supporting cast, including Alan Alda as the elderly man who founded Elysium (along with a handful of fellow hippies he is compelled to list every time the subject comes up) and Malin Akerman, Kathryn Hahn, and Kerri Kenney as the women of the commune whose personalities range from horny to irate to flighty.

Many of the jokes in Wanderlust try too hard or go on a bit too long to the point where they aren't that funny anymore. Take Ken Marino's portrayal of George's asshole brother, Rick. Marino plays Rick so intensely, that he comes off an abusive psychopath instead of just a raging dude-bro jerk. In a movie that's not explicitly absurdist and weird (as Wet Hot American Summer was), Marino's performance seems out of place.

But other than a few jokes that fall flat, Wanderlust is a goofy, entertaining film that is refreshingly feel good (the hippies would approve).

3.75 out of 5 stars

***


It


If you enjoyed The Artist and are intrigued by the silent film era, I highly recommend checking out the 1927 comedy It (no, not that movie where Tim Curry plays the scary clown...) starring Clara Bow. Based on the concept of "It"--a mix of charm, sex appeal, and a sense of glamour and fun--created by writer Elinor Glyn, It follows the trials and tribulations of one Betty Lou Spence (Bow), a shopgirl who is hot for her new boss. Betty Lou schemes her way into her boss's heart by using other men to get to him, lying, and playing coy. Sounds like a catch, right? But you have to forgive the girl--she's just so bursting with "It" that she cannot contain her mischievous and naughty ways! I described Betty Lou as the Zooey Deschanel of the 1920's--especially during a scene where she and her roommate take scissors to her dowdy work dress to create a sexy cocktail dress she wears on a date. So quirky! So cute! So charmingly daft! By god, she's got IT (as the intertitles and actors inform us numerous times).

Despite It being a light little trifle, the film is pretty funny and enjoyable. Whether you are a lover of silent cinema, or a newb who wants to learn more about silent movies, It is worth checking out.

3.75 out of 5 stars

Violence Begins in the Home

Movies: The Woman

Caution: There will be spoilers!

The Woman, directed by Lucky McKee, is a horror movie where the supposed villain turns out to be the one who saves the day, and the so-called "victims" are the true monsters.

In the grand tradition of horror cinema, The Woman is not merely a scary movie: it is a commentary about some aspect of our society seen through the exaggerated lens of gore and violence. In this case, The Woman takes on domestic abuse, what it means to be "civilized", and the patriarchy and shows (with a complete lack of subtlety, as is common in horror films) that the real monsters of the world don't hide in caves or cellars, waiting to jump out at us: instead, they walk among us in the form of rapists, abusers, and those wishing to control and manipulate us.

In The Woman, Chris Cleek--attorney, husband, and father--goes hunting and discovers a feral woman (Pollyanna McIntosh) living in the woods on his property. He captures her, chains her in his cellar, and informs his family that they are all going to participate in the woman's "civilization". It becomes clear that Chris (and his son, Brian, who eagerly follows in his dad's abusive footsteps) is the one who needs to be tamed. Chris Cleek appears to the outside world to be a handsome, goofy, normal guy--maybe with a few alpha male tendencies, but overall a decent guy. Behind closed doors, however, Chris beats his meek wife (played by the lovely Angela Bettis) and controls his children with an iron fist. His attempts to civilize the feral woman include beating her, starving her, and raping her. In time, his son begins to get in on the torture, and that's when things really hit the fan.

The climax of The Woman contain a few twists--including a very bizarre one involving one of the Cleek's daughters--while still being pretty predictable. Of course, Chris Cleek gets what's coming to him when the feral woman finally gets loose. It's pretty gory, but not as disturbing as what Chris puts his captive through.

Some who have see this movie claim that it's some kind of feminazi man-hating propaganda because the film portrays Chris Cleek as a misogynist sociopath who beats, rapes, and controls the women in his family as he sees fit (and in one disturbing scene tells his daughter that a woman's [every woman's] job is to sexually service men), while the women in the film are either the victims of Chris or the avengers. The film could indeed be read as a warning against men (who represent civilization) who feel that they have the right and the duty to control women (representing nature). And I kinda dig that--especially these days, given how the whole birth control and abortion war is playing out on the political stage. But in the end, I thinkMcKee wanted to make a film that, above all, questions what it means to be "civilized". Just because Chris puts on nice clothes and goes to a good job every day doesn't make him less of an animal underneath. And, conversely, just because the woman snarls, bites, and bares her teeth doesn't mean she commits violence without reason: in the end, she only kills those who have harmed her, and leaves those who helped her alone. The feral woman has more principles than her supposedly more evolved captor.

So if you're in the mood for a cathartic feminist exploitation picture (and who isn't!?) in which men who hurt women are violently punished--but don't want to sit through The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo again--The Woman is a good bet. Again, it's about as subtle as a sledgehammer, but who sees horror films for their subtlety?

4 out of 5 stars

And God Created Woman

Movies: Crazy Horse

The documentary Crazy Horse, about the upscale cabaret in Paris, felt a bit schizophrenic to me. It vacillates between genuinely erotic and breathtakingly dull. Not to sound prurient, but the scenes that feature dance numbers/stripteases--very artistically done by extremely talented women--are so beautiful and revel so joyously in the wonder that is the female form, that the rest of the movie (showing the backstage preparations and arguments over things like costumes and lighting) is downright boring in comparison.


Director Frederick Wiseman fails to give the audience some kind of narrative--anything, really, to give us a reason (beyond T&A) to watch this movie. Most documentaries aim to capture their subject(s) in a series of candid moments in order to make it obvious that we are not watching something scripted. However, even documentaries with the most mundane or obscure subjects are typically edited in such a way to give the audience something to grasp on to. Think of the rivalry between Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell in The King of Kong. It's a movie about Donkey Kong champions--an absurdly specific and silly subject--and yet, dammit, you want that jerk Billy Mitchell to get his just desserts! There is a clear hero and villain in that film, and it gives the audience someone to root for and someone to root against.

Some documentaries don't have a hero or a villain, or even a complex narrative, and yet still manage to fascinate the viewer. The documentary Hell House, about Christian "haunted houses" that are created to teach locals about sin and hell, manages to maintain a pretty neutral stance despite its potentially controversial subject. But because the director picked such a fascinating topic and all the people interviewed are articulate, funny, and interesting, Hell House is very compelling despite its simple narrative.

Sadly, Crazy Horse blows its potential to be an interesting film. It relies heavily on featuring nude dance numbers (which, to be fair, are pretty amazing) and slacks on telling any kind of story. The director has a tendency to focus on the most annoying, motormouthed behind-the-scenes people, such as the artistic director  and costume designer who both seem to be able to talk nonstop for hours at a time while saying absolutely nothing of importance. I would rather have heard from the dancers themselves--who, based on what we see in this documentary, are treated as little more than legs, boobs, and booties that need to fit a particular "look", despite the fact that these body parts are attached to extraordinarily talented women who are less strippers and more professional dancers.

The feminist in me saw Crazy Horse as fertile ground for discussion of mainstream views of female beauty, bodies, sexuality, and empowerment. The movie-goer in me just wanted some kind of plot device to keep me from falling asleep. Sadly, with this film, we get neither.

4 stars for the dance sequences
2.5 stars for everything else

Three Visions of Horror

Movies: The Woman in Black, Valkyrie, We Need to Talk About Kevin

Horror films come in all shapes and sizes, the better to fit our individual profiles of what we find terrifying. When I was in middle school,  I watched Stanley Kubrick's film The Shining in my family's unfinished, drippy basement alone at night. I had no trouble getting to sleep later that night. Fast forward to high school. I went to see The Ring in the theatre with a couple friends. From the first scene on, I was crouched into a little ball in the seat with one finger in my ear and the other fingers trying to simultaneously cover my eyes and let me peep through. I couldn't sleep all week. To this day, if I start thinking about The Ring while in bed, I have trouble sleeping.

Why is it that a movie about a psycho man with an ax--ostensibly something to really fear in this world--doesn't scare me, but a ghoul who comes out of a TV set makes me cringe in terror? Who knows. What scares us is personal and primal, and there are a thousand ways to terrify. The following movies all represent some form of horror, from ghosts to sociopathic children to one of the most evil men who ever lived. Which one scares you the most?

The Woman in Black


The Woman in Black, an old-fashioned haunted house story, is Daniel Radcliffe's first film post-Harry Potter. It's a stylish movie, with Victorian costumes, creepy old houses, and misty moors. As atmospheric as the film is, its scares are by the book.

Radcliffe plays Arthur Kipps, a lawyer and widower with a four-year-old son. His beloved wife died in childbirth and Kipps is still recovering from her death. Despite his despondency, his employer asks him to travel to a small village and retrieve the papers of a woman who recently died at Eel Marsh Manor--a large mansion just outside of town. Kipps is hardly in the mood to leave his son and run such an errand, but he does it so as not to lose his job.

As he rides into town and starts to inquire about the manor and its late owner, the townspeople become more and more hostile. They encourage him to leave, either by telling him he's not welcome or by simply glaring at him. Kipps goes ahead with his job anyway, and the scares begin the minute he arrives and the isolated manor. He sees mysterious things in the corner of his eye. He hears footsteps above him and when he goes to investigate, no one is there. He sees a figure of a woman in black outside in a nearby cemetery. Again, it's pretty by the book stuff. Meanwhile, the local children begin to meet gruesome ends. One girl drinks lye by accident and is poisoned. As Kipps looks into the papers left at Eel Marsh Manor, it becomes clear that the events (his seeing ghosts at the house and the children dying in the village) are related.

As in most ghost stories, the main character can't leave well enough alone. Instead of hightailing it out of the village, Kipps and a local man he befriends attempt to appease the ghost. And, well, let's just say the ending caught me off guard,

The Woman in Black managed to scare me in a very basic way: I jumped at the jump scenes. I winced whenever creepy Victorian toys appeared on screen. But I slept fine that night and haven't really thought much about the movie since.

Scare factor: 3 out of 5 stars
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Valkyrie


Yes, it's pushing it to call the historical film Valkyrie, which depicts the events leading up to an attempt to assassinate Hitler, a horror film. It's more intellectual suspense (not unlike Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) surrounding one of the most horrific chapters of 20th century history: the rise of the Nazi Party. However, the audience is shielded from the true horrors of WWII--the ghettos, the death camps, the torture and gruesome acts of violence. Instead, we get a glimpse into the Nazi elite. Valkyrie follows Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (played competently, though with an American accent, by Tom Cruise). Stauffenberg was a German officer who was recruited by other high-ranking (and secretly dissenting) German officers to devise a fool-proof plan to kill Hitler. Attempts had been made before and have failed, and those who are against the Nazis want to save Germany before the Allies show up and blow them all to hell.


Stauffenberg's main concern is what they will do once Hitler is dead. They can't expect to march right into his HQ and just take over. So the Colonel plots to use a contingency plan Hitler himself has backed: Operation Valkyrie. In the event of a natural disaster, Valkyrie calls for the reserve army to assemble and maintain order while the upper-level officers regain control. Much of the film deals with the technical details of this plan and how Stauffenberg and the other men meticulously planned Hitler's assassination, only to see it fail.

As far as scares go, there aren't too many. And unlike other films that depict the Nazis, Hitler is not quite the monstrous figure of evil we have come to imagine him. He is a small, hunched over little man with a sweaty brow and beady eyes in this film. Hitler's little toadies, in their handsome officer uniforms, are scarier than the Fuhrer himself. They seem to know all and have perpetual smirks on their faces. Valkyrie is an interesting little historical film that pays tribute to the German men and women who resisted Hitler's domination of their country and culture.

Scare factor: 2 out of 5 stars
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

We Need to Talk About Kevin


Now this is a damn horror film. We Need to Talk About Kevin is a devastating, emotionally draining film based on the novel by Lionel Shriver. It focuses on the relationship between an ambivalent mother and her increasingly sociopathic son and the events that lead up to an inevitable and insane act of mass murder, as well as the consequences that follow. We Need to Talk About Kevin is, at its core, about the horrors of motherhood. For most women, motherhood is difficult and beautiful. Having a baby grow inside you, giving it life and nourishment, raising it and teaching it; the decades-long experience of being a mom brings both enormous pain and deep joy. But not for everyone, and not for Eva (played by the excellent and truly vanity-free Tilda Swinton).

Eva's main sin is that she is passive. One day she's a free and happy woman on a tour of Europe, the next she's married to a nice but ineffectual dude and pregnant. She's not happy about being pregnant. She's not happy while giving birth. She's not happy with a screaming baby in her arms. And in Eva's defense, her dummy-hubby, Franklin (played by John C. Reilly, who is perfect in this role), gives her little support and instead tries to convince Eva that her fears about her young son are all "in her head" and that she is the one being cruel and difficult.

As Kevin grows, it becomes obvious that in addition to showing signs of a personality disorder, this little brat hasn't been raised right. Eight-year-old Kevin curses at his mom, who instead of punishing him, ignores him or tiptoes around him. Kevin treats his father with love and his mother with a disdain that borders on hatred. Eva is simultaneously resentful, fearful, and oddly submissive to her son--attempting to appease him and win him over. I'm not a fan of corporal punishment, but in the case of Kevin Eva would have done well to start spanking him for misbehavior as early as possible.

Things get really scary when Eva and Franklin have another child--a little girl. The first time young Kevin sees his baby sister, he sprinkles water on her to make her cry. These small tortures add up until a truly tragic "accident" occurs that seriously harms little Celia. Eva blames Kevin. Franklin tells Eva she needs to get therapy. Same as always, Franklin fails to see what Eva sees so clearly: Kevin is dangerous.

The film does not follow a straightforward narrative arc. Instead, we get flashes from the present (in which Eva visits her son in prison and tries to get back on her feel despite being tormented by neighbors and locals who know that she's the killer's mother), flashes from the past, and brief glimpses of the immediate aftermath of the killing spree. Most scenes last a few minutes or less, adding to a sense of chaos and confusion. Yet we see enough to put the pieces together.

By the end of the movie, I didn't understand why Eva hadn't changed her name and moved to another city. Eva's passiveness and desire to be a martyr grip her in the weeks and years after her son's act of violence. It's clear that she feels guilty about the way she raised Kevin. She probably torments herself with thoughts of "what could I have done differently?" But it's too little and too late. Although Kevin surely had this capacity for evil in him all along, one wonders that if Eva and Franklin were more of a team, if they had been more disciplinarian with their son, could they have nudged him onto another path? Who knows. Dave Cullen points out in his book Columbine that Dylan Klebold's parents were very involved and loving toward their son--but that didn't stop him from going on a school shooting spree.

It's easy to sympathize with Eva because for all the destruction her son wrought, she doesn't deserve to be the target of so much hate. However, it's difficult for me to put myself in her shoes since I do feel that I would have done things differently than her--I would have raised my son differently, married a different sort of man, and been less of a willing victim than Eva.

But then again, we don't know what lurks around the corner for us and how we would react--we can only guess, and pray that nothing so horrific happens to us or our loved ones.

Scare factor: 4 out of 5 stars
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Sex on the Couch

Movies: A Dangerous Method

In the opening scene of David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method a hysterical young woman is taken to a mental hospital run by psychiatrist Carl Jung at the turn of the 20th century. This young woman, Sabina Spielrein, is played by Keira Knightley with an intensity and ferocity that made it impossible for me to look away. In the throes of hysteria, she juts her jaw and bugs out her eyes. She twitches and growls like a wild animal. Jung (played by Michael Fassbender, who is quickly becoming my favorite actor) treats the suffering young woman calmly and kindly, explaining that he is going to try a new method to help her. He is going to sit in a chair behind her (so as not to distract her) and let her talk. That's it. It's called "the talking cure". What is so common in our society today (who among us hasn't been to, or at least considered, talk therapy? And if you haven't, you should. It's awesome!) was a radical approach to psychiatry a century ago.

The talking cure was adopted by famed psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (played by Viggo Mortensen), who mentored and worked with Carl Jung. A Dangerous Method follows their relationship, as well as Jung's doctor-to-lover-to-colleague relationship with Spielrein. A Dangerous Method could perhaps be classified as a "kink-illectual" film. It is obsessed with mind and body; sex and theory equally. And I must say, the scenes of Jung and Freud deconstructing Jung's dreams are just as stimulating as the scenes of Jung spanking a trussed up and hot-to-trot Spielrein.

Despite the presence of the two heavyweights of early psychoanalysis, the film belongs to Spielrein. Sabina Spielrein was a real person--a patient and lover of Jung who eventually went to medical school and studied child psychology. Sadly, she and her daughters were killed by the Nazis in 1942 and to this day she remains nothing more than a footnote in the body of knowledge that favors the men who shaped psychoanalysis. But in A Dangerous Method, Spielrein is front and center and treated with an equality and respect that kind of blew my mind. Cronenberg doesn't make this a movie about how a lowly female overcame the odds to follow her dream of studying medicine in the early 1900's (though she did); nor does he make it a heavy-lidded love story between a masochistic woman and an obliging male mentor (though it perhaps was). Instead, the fact that Spielrein became a medical student and was easily Freud and Jung's intellectual equal is treated as unremarkable. She was a smart lady; why wouldn't she study medicine.

Likewise, Spielrein's mental issues, her history of abuse at the hands of her father, and her sexual proclivities are treated with respect and sensitivity. As much as I love the film Secretary, it's annoying that Maggie Gyllenhaal's character Lee is both sexually submissive and a "cutter"--as if the two are in any way related. It's also annoying that when Lee and her boss, Mr. Grey, begin a Dominant/submissive relationship, all of a  sudden Lee no longer needs to hurt herself. Very inaccurate and misleading portrayal of both cutting and BDSM. Admittedly, A Dangerous Method flirts with the whole abuse = crazy/masochistic line: in one of the most riveting scenes, Spielrein discusses being beaten as a child and finds the strength to admit "it excited me". Since then, the thought of being beaten and/or humiliated has driven Spielrein into a state of hysteria and sexual excitement. But instead of "curing" her of her desire to be beaten, Jung helps Spielrein heal through talk therapy...oh, and also spanks her as part of their sex play. Spielrein emerges as a far more mentally healthy woman independent of her sexual masochism. And Jung is no screwed up, self-loathing sadist. He's just a nice guy with a belt and a willingness to use it on Spielrein any way she wants.

What is perhaps most remarkable about this film is that all the controversial and interesting things--sadomasochistic relationship, crazy-ass woman, woman going to medical school, two men chomping cigars and discussing penises, etc--are treated as totally normal and pedestrian. It's actually quite funny to see Freud and Jung speak so frankly and so dryly about sexuality in women or their own subconscious castration fears.

On top of this, the acting is superb. Mortensen and Fassbender are a delight to watch together--sipping brandy and hashing out ideas about psychoanalysis and sex. Knightley, whom I've always thought was a far better actress than her mainstream roles permit her to be, is finally is given the chance in this movie to chew the scenery (in a good way). Spielrein is a bit like Lisbeth Salander: her very existence is an extended middle finger to the patriarchy (and the patriarchy was especially alive and well in Spielrein's day). She encompasses many people's worst fears about "crazy bitches" and sexually lascivious women--and upends them. Spielrein is simultaneous "crazy", sexual, and intelligent. She gets to have her cake and eat it too--to have a lover and a career, all on her terms.

A Dangerous Method is one of the most fascinating, sexy, well-acted, and subversive films I've seen in a long time. I can't recommend it enough.

5 out of 5 stars

Silence is Golden

Movies: The Artist

I have some mixed feelings about The Artist. The film is undeniably beautiful and novel. We rarely see movies that are filmed in black and white these days, let alone silent films. The film's homage to the silent era of cinema and the advent of sound is touching, and its stars (the magnetic Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo) light up the screen.You can't help but melt at Dujardin's radiant smile. And Bejo doesn't look like a typical actress: her "flaws" (large front teeth, wide-set eyes) make her beautiful in a way that sets her apart from the dozens of interchangeable starlets in the industry. Half of the pleasure of the watching The Artist was just gazing at the lead actors.


On the other hand, there is something about The Artist that struck me as gimmicky and forced. I'm not talking about the fact that it's a silent, b&w film--I actually thought that was a very cool tribute to silent cinema. I think it has something to do with the wildly vacillating emotions the film tries to force on the audience. And that damn dog that's in every scene. I mean, I like dogs, but come on! There is nothing more manipulative than using an animal for reaction shots.

But let's go back to the forced emotion issue. One of my favorite scenes in the history of film is that very last shot of Charlie Chaplin in his masterpiece, City Lights. In the film, Chaplin plays a poor man who falls in love with a blind woman who sells flowers on the street for a living. He eventually pays for an operation to cure her blindness. In the final scene, the woman is now the successful owner of a flower shop. Chaplin walks by her shop and the woman, not knowing it was this poor man who saved her from destitution and paid for her operation, offers him a flower. As he gazes at her with love and adoration, she realizes who he is. Here's the famous final shot:

City Lights, particularly that last scene, is deeply emotional in a subtle way. The whole movie, despite its heavy subject matter (blindness, poverty), is a comedy, so the final shot feels that much more sincere--and not in a schmaltzy way.

The Artist is also a comedy with heavy themes. Dujardin plays George Valentin--a star of the silent screen who is slowly pushed out of the business as "talkies" come to dominate the movies. Bejo plays Peppy Miller, clearly modeled after Clara Bow and other "It Girls" of the 1920's. As George's career sputters out, Peppy's star rises until she is rich and famous beyond her wildest dreams--and George is divorced and living alone in a crappy apartment after losing his fortune. At the climax (SPOILER!!), George goes so far as to put a gun in his mouth (with the dog barking and biting at his pant leg--I admit that I did tear up at this point). As he's about to pull the trigger, Peppy rushes in and convinces him not to give up. And then in the very next scene, George and Peppy are gaily tap-dancing in a movie together. Wait, whaa...? The ending is some serious emotional whiplash. We watch George's life fall to complete shit for an hour and then immediately snap back to happy days in the final seconds of the film. The pacing of the movie was way off.

If it sounds like I'm tearing The Artist a new one, it's only because I'm holding it to a high standard. The Artist has won dozens of awards and is set to be one of the front runners for Best Picture at the Oscars this year. It's also a critical darling. And while it is a lovely film, it's ultimately too forgettable and just too...not enough...for me to give it the accolades other critics have given it. For my money, Hugo, which pays the same tribute to early film, is the superior movie and should win Best Picture. That said, it's a beautiful film and it was fun to let the images, rather than the words, tell the story for once.

3.75 out of 5 stars

Girl Fight

Movies: Haywire

I'll be brief with this one. Haywire, directed by Steven Soderbergh, is nothing more than an excuse to watch a woman beat the shit out of men bigger than her. To this end, the film succeeds. The fight scenes are stylish and exciting. The lead actress, Gina Carano, is not a waifish Hollywood starlet, but a real-life mixed martial arts champion. Therefore, it's easy to buy her in the role of Mallory Kane, a female black ops soldier who is betrayed by her superiors and must fight for her life multiple times.

It's fun to see Carano smash Channing Tatum's head against a bar stool in a diner and cut off Michael Fassbender's airflow with her thighs in a hotel room. There is so much (heterosexual, female-friendly) eye candy in this movie, it *almost* distracted me from the fact that the plot is practically non-existent. But as fun as the fight scenes and car chases are, Haywire is very, very thin and forgettable. It borders on pointless.

Haywire is the perfect movie to get on Netflix or at Red Box for an enjoyable evening of slick entertainment at home. It's as light and digestible as the popcorn you'll make in your own microwave. But please, don't spend over 10 dollars to see it at the theatre like I did. Let Mallory Kane kick the bad guys' asses, and not your wallet's ass.

3 out of 5 stars

A Bared Soul

Movies: Shame

Steve McQueen's latest film, Shame, has elicited some interesting responses. The NC-17 film about a man, Brandon (Michael Fassbender in a virtuoso performance), struggling with sex addiction, has been the target of a number of jokes and referred to cheekily as "the Michael Fassbender penis movie!" (I'm guilty of saying this myself). It's also been met with some skepticism. A number of reviews and articles have questioned the existence of sex addiction, even going so far as to claim sex addiction is basically a way to demonize male sexuality. Never mind that there are female sex addicts as well.

I think that sex addiction is just as real and damaging as alcoholism, drug addiction, Internet addiction, or anything else that consumes the life of the addict. It's clear that Brandon no longer takes any pleasure in the copious amounts of sex he has. He wakes up in the morning and masturbates in the shower. No big issue there. But then he arrives at his corporate office and downloads hardcore pornography onto his work computer. So much pornography that the tech department thinks his computer must have a virus. He masturbates at work. He goes out after work and has sex with a woman he just met under a highway overpass. He goes home and logs on to his computer and spends the evening looking at more porn. But that's not what happens on one particularly horny day for Brandon--it happens every day. Countless partners--willing women if possible, prostitutes and gay men if necessary. Garbage bags and closets filled with DVDs, magazines, sex toys. A lack of ability to connect with a woman in a non-sexual way. Sex is not fun for Brandon: it's oxygen. It's life itself. And it's a living hell.

When Brandon's unstable and desperately vulnerable sister, Sissy (Carey Mulligan, also giving an excellent performance), shows up unexpectedly at his bachelor pad, she throws his routine (sex, sleep, sex, work, sex, food, sex, sex...) out of whack. The two have cryptic conversations about their past: "We're not bad people. We just come from a bad place." Sissy says to Brandon. But director McQueen gives no direct clues about what Brandon and Sissy's past was like and why they are who they are as adults. The viewer assumes the worst: abuse, definitely. Sexual abuse, very likely. Repressed sexual feelings for each other, possibly.

Sadly, Shame offers little insight into sex addiction--it merely shows what addiction looks like on the surface, and not how Brandon's thought process works underneath. We know he is self-loathing. We infer that he is probably too scared, ashamed, or proud to take the necessary steps to heal himself. He is a man's man surrounded all day by alpha male types who view hooking up (and money) as the ultimate display of masculine power. How can Brandon possibly break free when his own social circle, as well as the society he lives in, keep telling him to fuck more and prettier women? Even his rock bottom--a grim threesome during which Brandon grimaces and looks deeply pained--would get him a high-five at work.

Shame is a slick film with beautiful cinematography and wonderful performances by Fassbender and Mulligan, but it never quite reaches the audience's heart. We sympathize with Brandon, but since the director keeps him at arm's length, we never get to truly empathize with his emotional and sexual prison. Shame is powerful, but it could have been more so if McQueen had let us in a little more (no pun intended). Like Brandon, Shame is beautiful, but closed off.

4 out of 5 stars

A Religious Fanaticism Twofer

Movies: Camp Hell, Red State

Movies that mock religion are always shaky ground. They run the risk of being obvious and ham-fisted--of using a sledgehammer instead of a scalpel to dissect people's very personal beliefs. Bill Maher's documentary Religulous is a perfect example of a filmmaker shooting fish in a barrel and preaching to the choir. Maher picks easy targets: people too dumb to defend their own beliefs with any sort of critical thinking or self-reflection. Instead of making a genuine attempt to explore the intricacies and hypocrisy of religion, Maher simply laughs his ass off at the idiots. But the conclusion he reaches is less "religious people are stupid" and more "stupid people are stupid". It's the film equivalent of People of Walmart: such an easy target, the shooter (in this case, Maher) should be embarrassed.

It takes sensitivity, finesse, and (I would argue) a personal knowledge of religion in order to properly question/satirize religion. Outsiders rarely get it--they just see a bunch of delusional morons praying to what they believe to be an invisible and non-existent bearded dude in the sky. But someone who understands the minds, language, and emotions of those believers can simultaneously skewer and pay homage to religion. Trey Parker and Matt Stone are a good example of people who do religious satire correctly. Another example is Kevin Smith, whose film Dogma mocked the Catholic Church in a loving and absurd manner. His casting of Alanis Morrisette as God (I know, right?) did not intend to belittle Catholicism, as some believed, but to make a point about how we don't know shit about the nature of God and who he/she/it is. At least that was how I interpreted it.

In Red State, Smith's horror film that blatantly mocks (while also giving three dimensions to) Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church, is another insightful take down of religious belief gone mad. In Red State, three high school boys living in a conservative town spend an evening seeking out what they believe will be easy sex with a middle-aged woman. They end up drugged and chained in the basement of the "Five Points Church", run by the charismatic and insane Abin Cooper (Michael Parks in an excellent and terrifying performance). Cooper is an obvious nod toward Fred Phelps of "God Hates Fags" fame. He is the leader of a so-called "church", which is more of a cult made up of his own family and their spouses. Cooper directs his greatest ire towards the "homosexuals", who he believes are destroying America.

The major difference between the fictional Cooper and the real Phelps is that Cooper and his family take their beliefs to the bloody extreme: they lure sinners into their homes, drug them, and then murder them as part of their worship services (after taking the children out of the room, of course). The three boys who go out seeking sex find themselves in a Waco-like struggle for survival when the local authorities--and then the Feds--get involved.

Red State was nothing like I expected it to be. I thought it would be straight-forward horror with a blundering take on religious fundamentalists. I was wrong. Red State doesn't mock Christians so much as it mocks cults. Abin Cooper's "church" is so obviously unlike any normal--even ultraconservative--church, that it bears no resemblance to Christianity.

In addition, although Red State begins like your typical torture-porn films, with sexually active teens ending up drugged, bound, and gagged; the film took increasingly radical (yet plausible) turns that I did not see coming. My mind was blown from start to finish.

Red State, as fans of Smith will make clear, is not a typical Kevin Smith film. It definitely has moments of crude humor, a la Clerks, but that humor is all but shut down when the bullets start flying. I want to warn folks that this is a very, very violent movie. It's not as grotesque as, say, Saw, but there is a scene in the first half of the movie where the men of Five Points Church kidnap a gay man, saran wrap him to a cross on their church's altar, and shoot him in the head point-blank as he begs for his life through a ball gag. It is one of the most psychologically distressing scenes of cruelty I've watched--and I watch a lot of movies. In my opinion, Smith is able to toe the line between exploitation and violence that is relevant to the plot of the film. Those who are sensitive to violence won't enjoy this movie, but horror and independent film aficionados will probably be able to stomach it. Oh and PS: even though women do get killed in Red State, the film is very much NOT exploitative towards women in general. Which is a nice departure from a lot of horror films.

Red State didn't get the greatest reviews when it first came out, so my expectations were low. The film was a pleasant surprise and kept me on the edge of my seat and  guessing about what turns it would take until the final scene. I really enjoyed it.

4.5 out of 5 stars

Camp Hell, on the other hand, was not remotely as good as Red State. Camp Hell is a little-seen indie horror movie from 2010. The description on Netflix claims the movie "stars" Jesse Eisenberg. Wrong. Eisenberg is in two scenes. He probably has a grand total of 5 minutes of screen time.

Instead, Camp Hell stars a number of unknowns as the religious campers at Camp Hope, a Christian retreat for extremely fundamentalist teenagers. I couldn't figure out what religious denomination these people were supposed to be part of. Bruce Davison plays a priest who runs the camp, but the teens clearly aren't Catholic. Or maybe they're an obscure, ultraconservative Catholic sect. I honestly couldn't tell. Either the filmmakers know very little about religious denominations, or they didn't want to insult a particular denomination so they just made up some generic, conservative sect.

In any case, the basic plot of Camp Hell is this: Tommy Leary (Will Denton) is a teen at Camp Hope who is experiencing increasingly frightening visions and dreams. After he takes his crush, Melissa, out to the woods and dry humps her, all hell literally breaks loose, bringing tangible evil into the camp. It's up to Father McCallister to fight back against the evil at hand. Tommy Leary does his part by deciding not to believe in this shit any more and therefore lessening the power this evil has over him.

So...the moral of the story appears to be: 1) dry humping causes the devil to emerge from hell and terrorize teens at camp (a pretty hilarious, yet apt take on the "sexually active teens in horror films" trope), 2) If you believe in conservative, highly-supernatural religion, you will go insane and kill everyone you love, 3) If you make a conscious decision not to believe in any of that crap, you'll be fine and live a normal life. Sounds about right to me.

In addition to the shaky theology and horror-film cliches, the actual horror element of Camp Hell is pretty weak tea. I'm generally not scared by demon/devil possession movies to begin with, but even the climax of this film was not impressive in the least. Camp Hell reminded me of Lucky McKee's film The Woods: about a coven of witches that run a girls boarding school in the 1960's. Camp Hell, like The Woods, had an interesting premise and indie cred, but in the end was all bark and no bite. Ultimately, Camp Hell is simply an unsatisfying, cliched horror film.

2.5 out of 5 stars

A Muppet Twofer

Movies: The Muppets, Being Elmo

The Muppets

The things from our childhood and adolescence stay with us. Just this past Christmas, I was at home (or, I should say, my parents' home--but that sounds kinda weird) and I was going through some old books and stuffed animals I loved as a kid. I picked up a stuffed lion--Mickey--and when I felt the security blanket material he was made from, that feeling of total safety and warmth and love washed over me. Pop culture from childhood and our formative years can be the same as picking up an old blankey or teddy bear--they seem to be physically coated with emotions and good vibes.

This, I think, is why The Muppets has been such a raving success. Many of the people most eager to see The Muppets on screen again grew up watching *something* created by Jim Henson: The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, The Dark Crystal...hell, even Muppet Babies counts. And here the Muppets were coming back to the big screen--and collaborating with Jason Segel, Amy Adams, Jack Black, and Jim frickin' Parsons! Talk about filling a theatre with good vibes.

I start this review on a positive, pro-Muppet note because although I enjoyed The Muppets, I feel incredibly guilty that I didn't love the movie. I laughed a lot during the film, but I also had some big issues with it, and I can't say that film lit up my heart the way other movies have. And I think it may be partially due to the fact that, despite watching Sesame Street as a kid, I never saw The Muppet Show until I was a senior in college.


Anyhoo, so I just want to say that I completely respect those who loved The Muppets with the fire of 1,000 suns. I enjoyed the movie as well, and I totally get people's love for it.

But I'm going to be a boner-killer now and say that I was put off by 1) Kermit and Piggy's codependent and possibly abusive relationship and 2) Amy Adams and Jason Segel's weirdly chaste, bizarre, and completely pointless relationship.

On that first point: Ok, I get it. The relationship between Miss Piggy and Kermit has always hinged on the fact that she's more into him then he is into her. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if Kermit identified as asexual. If you think it's weird to ponder a Muppet's sexual identity, consider that Piggy herself is quite obviously a sexual being: she's loves express her flamboyant femininity, as well as kissing, hugging, and chasing down Kermie. She's the Pepe LePew of the Muppets.

However, I was genuinely offended that the filmmakers give Piggy and awesome career working for French Vogue in Paris and then take it all away from her! Kermit tracks Piggy down to ask her to join the rest of the original cast of The Muppet Show in order to raise enough money to save the Muppet Theatre. Piggy turns Kermit down, saying that she has made her own life without him and the other Muppets. Kermit persists and finally Piggy relents.

Ok...I could see Piggy maybe coming back to the show for one final production. Or maybe even staying a while while the rest of the Muppets get back on their feet. But by the end of the movie, Kermit has convinced Miss Piggy to stay on indefinitely!! He even says (and this is line that really got me): "Maybe you don't need the whole world to love you...maybe you just need one person." Oh, that's rich. Screw you, Kermit! I've seen enough of Miss Piggy to know that she DOES need the whole world to love her--that's the point of Miss Piggy! Maybe Piggy loves to be loved and worshipped and desired. Some women need that, Frog. And besides, Kermit has made it abundantly clear that he doesn't feel for her what she feels for him. Dangling the carrot of "love" in front of her to get her to give up her awesome, fascinating career and life in Paris and stay with the Muppets is cruel, to say the least.

I know that Piggy has not always treated Kermit well, even resorting to physical abuse in the past ("hiii-yah!"), so it's not like she's totally innocent here. But the bottom line is that this relationship is never going to work out and the two should just move on and get out of each other's hair. The end.

This brings me to my second beef with the film: Gary (Segel) and Mary (Adams). Gary plays a Muppet-aficionado whose brother, Walter, is actually a Muppet. Gary has a girlfriend, Mary, and the two have been dating for 10 years. Mary wants to get married, but she keeps waiting for the insensitive and clueless Gary to propose. She also lets him make the plans for their big anniversary dinner, which he screws up as well. Ok girl, you've been with this guy for 10 years. Clearly, he's an idiot when it comes to remembering stuff and making plans. I think you may need to relinquish the archaic gender roles for two seconds (you can do it--I saw you repairing a car in that one super-cute scene!) and actually propose to Gary if you want him. Speaking of which, why would you want him? You're one of the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood--you don't need to be with this galoot. Plus, you'd always be playing second-fiddle to a Muppet (his brother Walter). Face facts Mary: Gary is a manchild with an unhealthy attachment to his Muppet brother. And by the looks of it, you don't seem to be too into Muppets yourself. I think this may be a deal breaker.

Now that I've destroyed your childhoods, I want to say again that I really enjoyed The Muppets and I'm probably taking the things that didn't sit well with me too seriously. However, that was my genuine impression of the movie--a fun, joyful experience on the surface, with some subtext that made me uncomfortable underneath.

3.5 out of 5 stars

***

Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey

Being Elmo, on the other hand, was a joy both on the surface and underneath. The documentary tells the story of Kevin Clash, a 51-year-old man who is the puppeteer for Elmo, the beloved perpetually three-year-old monster on Sesame Street. To see Elmo's squeaky voice emerge from a large man is hoot to say the least, but watching Clash/Elmo interact with young children is amazing. And, at times, heartbreaking--such as when a dying toddler gets her wish of meeting Elmo.


Like the documentary Buck, which I saw a few months ago, Being Elmo is inspiring because it is about a person doing the very thing they love the most. Being Elmo traces Clash's career all the way back to his obsession with Muppets (watching them and making them) as a child. Clash eventually got a chance to work with puppets on public access television and, finally, at the Jim Henson studios. Being Elmo is as much about the hard work and years it takes to master a trade or talent as it is about following your dreams. Clash lucked out in many ways, but he also worked hard and asked for what he wanted. This film is shows the true meaning of the American Dream: discovering what makes you tick and making the most of your passions.

Being Elmo strikes all the right chord as a documentary. It's fascinating (getting to see how Muppets are created), emotionally moving (Clash's interactions with kids), and very entertaining (seeing Clash teach other puppeteers and listening to him talk like Elmo). It's a wonderful, fun film that will greatly increase your respect for puppeteers and the work they do.

4 out of 5 stars

Some Stuff I've Read/Watched Lately

Movies and Books: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Le Havre, Lady Terminator, The Leftovers

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy


I read a review of this film that said "I had no idea what was going on, but I still loved it". That pretty much sums up my viewing experience as well. Luckily, I had Wikipedia to prepare me for this dense and detailed film. Armed with the synopsis, I was able to follow the plot well enough: Gary Oldman plays George Smiley, a man employed in the top echelon of British Intelligence (an elite group of men known as "the Circus") in the early 1970's. Smiley's mentor and boss, Control (John Hurt), who is the head of British Intelligence, has been collecting evidence of a mole within the Circus who is feeding information to the Soviets. After a mishap involving an intelligence exchange in Hungary, Control and Smiley are forced out of Intelligence and Control has a heart attack. Smiley is left to continue Control's work of rooting out the mole.


The title refers to the nicknames Control gives the top men in the Circus: there's Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), aka "Tinker"; Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), "Tailor"; Roy Bland (Ciaran Hands), "Soldier"; and Toby Esterhase (David Dencik), "Poor Man". It's up to Smiley, with the help of another agent, Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy), and a young intelligence officer, Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch), to discover who the "Spy" of the group is.

There is a lot going on in the movie, and the filmmakers don't dumb anything down for the audience's sake. I followed the film about 70 percent of the time, but even when I lost track of all the details, I still pretty much managed to keep from getting completely lost. And the film is more than the details of the story--it's about the mood of Cold War Europe as well. 70's England, at the height of the Cold War, appears grey and dirty. The characters' homes and offices are poorly lit and sparsely furnished. There's a scene that takes place during an office Christmas party reminded me of Mad Men--albeit a dingier, far less glamorous version of Mad Men. The men of the Circus have very paltry lives outside of their jobs (however, a major plot point concerns Smiley's cheating wife), and Ricki Tarr says at one point that he wants to get out of Intelligence: "I'm not like you [men]. I want to have a family." These supposedly privileged men are bound to their careers and their country, and because of this they often come across as boring and grey as the scenery. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is hardly a "sexy" or conventionally exciting spy movie, but it is taut, thrilling, and very cerebral--a treat for those who enjoy "brain candy" type films.

4 out of 5 stars

***

Le Havre


On the opposite side of the spectrum from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is  Le Havre. Where Tinker Tailor is intellectual and challenging, Le Havre is simple and light. Le Havre is about an elderly shoeshiner, Marcel Marx, living in Le Havre (a port city in France) who takes in an African boy who is heading to London illegally. Marcel takes the boy in and hides him from the authorities until the young man can safely make his way to his family in England. That's it. Le Havre is what I might call aggressively pleasant--even the mean, wily police officer who is on the African boy's tail turns out to be a big softie in the end. There is no actual discussion of the ethical dilemmas that illegal immigration produces. Basically, the movie is: old man lives a pleasant life that is pleasantly disrupted by a pleasant (and almost entirely silent) immigrant until the situation is pleasantly resolved and everything goes back to normal. It was cute; there were some laughs; but overall the film was as light and unsubstantial as air.


2.5 out of 5 stars

***

Lady Terminator


Whoa. This movie. Lady Terminator is a bizarrely awful (and I mean in that in the best possible way) film that came to my local artsy theatre as a midnight movie. My friend had been talking about it for months, saying that is was the greatest bad movie since The Room, so of course I had to check it out. Well, she wasn't just blowing smoke. Lady Terminator is insane and so unintentionally funny, you actually may die laughing.

The film opens up with a sea queen who takes on a series of lovers. When they fail to satisfy her in bed, an eel comes out of her vagina and bites their manhood off. None of that previous sentence was a typo: Eel vagina. Bitten off manhood. When the queen finally meets a man who is able to tame the vagina eel (he removes it and it becomes a dagger), she is furious and vows revenge on the man's great-granddaughter. Cut to three generations later: a young, sexy anthropologist goes in search of information about the legendary sea queen, but ends up falling into the sea and becoming possessed with the sea queen's...essence? ghost? In any case, an eel goes into her vagina and she becomes immortal and goes around killing everyone in sight: either with the vagina eel, a machine gun, or frickin' lasers that shoot out of her frickin' eyeballs.

You know what, let's just stop right there. Lady Terminator is beyond explanation. It just exists of a plane of its own. If you get a chance to see it, please do. You won't regret it. Eel vagina!

1 star for quality, dubbing, acting, music, costumes, and script
5 stars for entertainment value

"First she mates...then she terminates!"



***

The Leftovers 
by Tom Perrotta

I had been meaning to get around to Tom Perrotta's latest novel for months. When I finally picked it up, I read half of it in one sitting. Perrotta is a master of satirizing suburbia and all the little tempests in teapots that go on in suburban life. His last novel, The Abstinence Teacher focused on the culture war between evangelical Christians and neo-liberal parents over the topic of sex education. His novel before that, Little Children, was about what happens when a registered sex offender moves into a family-friendly neighborhood. In The Leftovers, Perrotta aims for a more existential subject: the Rapture. Or, rather, a "Rapture-like" event where thousands of people around the world disappear into thin air simultaneously: atheists, Christians, Muslims, Jews, gay people, sinners and saints, and people of every nation, color, and creed alike. Perrotta doesn't bother to explain what this Rapture-like event is or what it means--instead he focuses on how those left behind react.

Don't worry. The premise sounds familiar, but this novel is no Tim LaHaye Christian propaganda. In Perrotta's vision of post-Sudden Departure (the name the characters give the unexplained event) small town America, there's plenty of room for bizarre religion fanaticism and existential angst, but there are no "right" or "wrong" answers. Some of the characters find themselves drawn to cults and weird holy men, while others just want to get on with some semblance of a "normal" life after the Sudden Departure. As time goes by, both science and religion fail to offer up any explanations about what happened during the Departure, and the characters are forced to confront the moral and relational choices they've made since the event.

Perrotta, who is one of my favorite authors, walks a fine line between acidic satire and gentle understanding. He has a real respect for his characters--none of them are monsters or caricatures. Even though some of them do boneheaded and mean things, Perrotta makes sure the reader understands and empathizes with their motives. If you haven't read any of Perrotta's work, I highly recommend him. His view of the human condition is realistic and not always complimentary, but always hopeful.

4.5 out of 5 stars

2011: The Best and the Rest

Movies: Best of 2011

2011 was a weird year for movies. There were a lot of thoughtful, artistic endeavors that left me cold (I'm thinking of The Tree of Life and Melancholia), whereas some of my favorite movies were more mainstream than I typically go for (I loved X-Men and Bridesmaids). And then, of course, there were dozens of very good films that just didn't stay with me for long (Martha Marcy May Marlene, Meek's Cutoff, The Cave of Forgotten Dreams, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt. 2 were among them). I think in the long run it was a good year for film--a lot of filmmakers and film viewers took risks in what they made and what they watched this year. Even if I didn't find a new film to add to my "all-time favorites" list, I still had a lot of fun and some amazing experiences at the movies this year.

My Favorite Films of 2011:

6. Hugo
Hugo was one of only two movies I saw more than once in the theatre this year. The first time I watched it I was with a big group of friends and we saw it in 3D. I felt a tremor of joy go through me during the opening sequence, as the camera pans down to 1930's Paris and into the train station where Hugo Cabret lives and works, hidden away like a mouse. The scenes depicting George Melies making his films at the turn of the 20th century, as well as Hugo and Isabella's journey to the film archives, caused me to feel nostalgia for a time I never lived in, and have only experienced vicariously through film. The second time around, I saw Hugo with my parents--both of whom admitted to tearing up during the movie. It's rare that I find a movie that brings out the same emotions and pleasure in my parents and also my cinephile comrades. Hugo did just that.

5. Circumstance 
A little seen, but powerful film about two Iranian teenagers experiencing the first stirrings of adulthood, sexuality, and independence in a culture that is intent on keeping them quiet and obedient. The most heartbreaking message of the film is that the two young women love each other so much, but in the end their love isn't enough to change their circumstances.

4. The Skin I Live In 
Certainly one of the most bizarre films of the year, Pedro Almodovar's The Skin I Live In is, well, difficult. It's the story of a woman who is a captive, yet never lets go of the freedom inside herself. It's a violent--even perverted--film yet has a dark sense of humor; a combination that is Almodovar's specialty. Gallows humor, you could call it. And as in Almodovar's other movies, the heroine at the center of The Skin I Live In thrives in awful circumstances and proves herself stronger than her oppressor.

3. X-Men: First Class
I went into this movie with pretty low expectations. I had never seen any of the previous X-Men films or read any of the X-Men comics. I knew next to nothing about the X-Men. But for my money, this was one of the most entertaining movies I saw this year. James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender give excellent performances as Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr--young men who start as friends with radically different life experiences and thus radically different philosophies that will one day force them to part ways as enemies. Superhero movies often have very simple worldviews: good vs. evil, strong vs. weak, etc. X-Men: First Class takes this black and white way of looking at the world and adds shades of gray.

2. Another Year
Technically, this film was released in 2010. However, it didn't reach my town until January of 2011, so I'm counting it as part of this year. Another Year is quiet character study that is so realistic that at times it's painful to watch. Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen play Tom and Gerri (yes...), a happily married couple entering their golden years with so much love, happiness, health, and modest wealth that their single, lonely friend Mary (Lesley Manville, in what I think is the best performance of the year) looks downright pathetic in comparison. And Mary is pathetic: drinking too much wine and passing out in Tom and Gerri's guest bedroom; flirting with their 30-something son; looking around the dinner table with sadness and desperation in her eyes. Mary is a character you want to slap and hug at the same time, mostly because it's easy to see a little of yourself in her. We all feel a little loserish once in a while, and despite its gentleness, Another Year makes us wince with recognition.


1. Bridesmaids
Bridesmaids is the other film I saw more than once in the theatre. In fact, I saw it three times: with coworkers, on a date, and with my *gulp* mom and dad. And all three times, I sat through the credits thinking "I could watch this again right now". Granted, I was predisposed to like Bridesmaids, being a fourth-ish wave feminist raised on Jezebel.com, Bust magazine, and Tina Fey. Bridesmaids was billed as the movie that would change "chick flicks" and comedies starring women forever. Finally, we would prove Christopher Hitchens wrong: women ARE funny, dammit! Now laugh!

Well, I can't say that Bridesmaids started a revolution, exactly--although it did make more money than Superbad and became one of the biggest R-rated hits of, well, ever. But I will say this: my 57 year old father, an avowed hater of romantic comedies and chick flicks, sat through this movie and said he really liked it and that it almost made him cry. That's something, folks.

Bridesmaids meant something to me--it was like an acknowledgement of my worldview. I saw in Bridesmaids my sense of humor, my relationships with my female friends, my simultaneous resentment of and desire for romance reflected on screen--perhaps a little too cartoonishly in Wiig and company's hands, but reflected all the same. It's not all Two and a Half Men and Bridget Jones's Diary out there. There is a place where comedy and the female experience intersect--and I want to go to there.

***

Honorable Mentions:

Beginners
This sweet movie about a octogenarian (Christopher Plummer) who comes out of the closet and wants to make up for lost time after the death of his wife, only to be diagnosed with cancer, is heartwarming in the best possible way. It's affectionate without being cloying; it's optimistic without being unrealistic and pollyannaish; it's twee without bashing you over the head with cuteness (for people with a high tolerance for cute). Beginners could have gone horribly awry, but I felt that it hit the mark, thanks mostly to the performances of Plummer and Ewan McGregor as his thoughtful, introverted son. In an entertainment market that favors a violent, action-oriented version of masculinity, these two gentle men stood out as the real deal.

Drive
Speaking of violent, action-oriented masculinity, Drive takes male heroism is a grim--even sickening--extreme. Starring the Man/Meme of the Year--Ryan Gosling--as a loner who is a stunt car driver by day and a getaway driver by night, Drive got some major backlash when it turned out not to be the sexy car movie audiences were expecting it to be. In an earlier review, I bitched about Drive not having any three-dimensional female characters, and that the women in Drive were essentially "tokens" without much to do except serve as props and motivations for the male characters. But then I realized that Bridesmaids does pretty much the exact same thing with its male characters. So...fair's fair I guess. Anyway, despite Drive's flaws, it's a movie that haunts you long after the credits roll.


The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 
Last year, the original Swedish adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo made my top five. Sadly, as good as David Fincher's remake was, it didn't equal the thrill of seeing the film for the first time, when the mystery is still fresh. Also, seeing actors I knew speaking in English was a distraction. When I saw the Swedish version, I wasn't familiar with any of the actors, and the subtitles made the whole thing seem more authentic. That said, everyone who worked on this movie did a fine job. The chilly cinematography and unsettling music are especially affecting, and Rooney Mara's portrayal of Lisbeth Salander is excellent. Like Drive, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo doesn't have *too* much going on beneath is slick, ultraviolent surface--but it is an exciting, entertaining film nonetheless.

***

Other good movies of note:


Buck, Crazy, Stupid, Love, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt. 2, The Lincoln Lawyer, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Meek's Cutoff, Midnight in Paris, Super


***


My Least Favorite Films of 2011

3. Breaking Dawn pt. 1
It's an easy choice, and I have to give it credit for being unintentionally funny, but when it comes right down to it, Breaking Dawn pt. 1 is not a good movie. Kristin Stewart and Robert Pattinson may be good actors in other films, but they just looked pained and sad to be part of this franchise. The film's vampire mythology is inconsistent, the dialogue is laughable and overwrought, and the film's messages about love, family, and motherhood are...let's just be honest...fucked up. The Twilight movies serve as silly popcorn entertainment for those who can stand it and torture for those who can't.

2. Limitless
What sounds like a great idea on paper (a loser gets access to brain drug that makes him awesome at everything) was surprisingly uninspired and stupid on screen. From the unnecessary voiceover narration to Bradley Cooper's not ideal performance, to the Robert De Niro bait-and-switch (the previews make him look like the main bad guy, but he's not really in the movie that much and he's not really that villainous!), the whole thing is just underwhelming.

1. No Strings Attached
Where Limitless was underwhelming, No Strings Attached was downright boring, which, to me, is the greatest sin a movie can commit. There are plenty of "bad" movies that can be extremely entertaining, but this Ashton Kutcher/Natalie Portman rom-com was such a snoozer, it was kind of depressing. I don't like Kutcher, but the man can be funny. He just looks sedated here. And Natalie Portman as a sex-hungry, over-worked, cherub-cheeked doctor? No. I think terrible casting was the film's main problem. The thing is, I wanted to like No Strings Attached. I wanted it to be funny, and kind of dirty, and sweet. But it was jusrtt,,,


...zzzzzzzz

***

Overrated films of 2011:
Attack the Block, The Help, Melancholia, The Tree of Life, The Trip, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

***


Well, that's all folks! Here's to another great year in film!